Chen Yun

Chen Yun (13 June 1905-19 April 1995) was one of the Eight Elders of the Communist Party of China, and one of the most important leaders of post-Civil War China, alongside Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Ren Bishi.

Biography
Chen Yun was born in Shanghai, China in 1905 to an urban working-class family, and he became a union organizer during the late 1920s, participated in the Long March, and served on the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China from 1931 to 1987. In 1937, he became head of the Party's Organization Department, serving until 1944; by the 1940s, he had become one of Mao Zedong's closest advisors. In 1949, he joined the Central Finance and Economic Commission, and he was involved with economic planning during the 1950s. Chen Yun survived the purge of Peng Dehuai and the other "Right Opportunists" during the Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s, despite sympathizing with Peng's attempts to reform the Great Leap. During the Cultural Revolution, he was attacked by the publications of the Red Guards, and he held no functional positions between 1969 and 1975, when he was elected to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. Following the death of Mao in 1976, Chen was a leading critic of Maoism, and he promoted Chinese economic reforms. However, he was much less enthusiastic about the market than Deng Xiaoping and his colleagues, and he made common cause with the conservatives among the Party Elders. He ceased to be Chairman of the Central Advisory Commission of the Communist Party of China in 1992, and he died in 1995.